[USWC Fall Vacation] Day 04/05 : Citadel Premium Outlets + Spago by Wolfgang Puck + Crypto.com Arena

Before travelling to LA, I did some research for outlet-styled malls, and I found a place named Citadel Premium Outlets which is located within the city of Los Angeles. We had our brekkie at the outlet premises before we began our shopping.

Everything is SOOOOO affordable, and I honestly think shopping in the United States is the best form of Retail Therapy, EVER!

On this shopping spree, I made it a point to to buy American branded clothes, apparel and etc at very affordable prices! I made a beeline to the Kate Spade Outlet Store, as they were having a great 70% discount for their clearance items, with an additional 25% marked down on the clearance price as well!! 

Baby and I also did some shopping at a unique American clothing shop called Old Navy.

Before we left, we also did some purchases at Tommy Hilfiger and Nike, which had a really good deal going on as well. To summarize, the United States is a good place to buy branded clothes and etc, at very affordable prices.

I picked up a number of items from the Kate Spade Outlet Store. I love this black spade necklace the best, and I only paid USD21. I wore it immediately during my entire vacation.

We passed by the Hollywood Sign on our way back to the Airbnb, as we had to change and dress-up for our dinner.

Baby booked for us a table at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Beverly Hills. It is the flagship restaurant of the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group.

I loved the off-menu Smoked Salmon Pizza, as well as the Spicy Big Eye Tuna Cones!

My main - Squid Ink Farfalle was fabulous, while eating, I bit a small lobster shell, so I informed the service staff about it. They apologised and offered to change my pasta, but I told them that I was okay with it. My agenda was purely to give feedback only to the chef, but to our pleasant surprise, they took our feedback seriously and 'took care' of the dish!

We ended the night with something sweet, and we had Kaiserschmarrn which is a Strawberry Sorbet with Golden Raisins and Candied Almonds. It was delicious, and we gave it a 10/10 rating!

We considered ourselves enormously lucky, as we got to meet and greet celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck himself! He stopped by our table to check on us and had a quick chat, as well as to take a few photos with us. That was incredible and was a memorable evening!

At first, I was worried that the restaurant might be snobbish and stiff, but in reality service was very warm and wonderful. I felt like I was being fawned over the entire evening and that we were ‘important’ people. It was truly hospitable and professional, and I was blown away by the fact that they really took care of my pasta, as that item was removed from our final bill.

Spago was definitely a great experience for us! A good combination of delicious food was accompanied by AWESOME service. Despite all my initial doubts about this place, I was delighted that I went. I really love Spago in Beverly Hills as compared to the one in Singapore which is located at MBS.

On the next day, we left for our live NBA basketball game at 12noon after our brunch at our Airbnb. We drove down to Downtown LA (DTLA), and parked at one of the many public open-air car-parks. The charge was USD10 for a 7-8 hour period! This was fairly cheap considering some of the parking downtown could hit up to USD30 for the whole day! The drawback to our cheap parking was of course, it being a fairly long walking distance to the actual heart of downtown, The reason why we did want to come to downtown LA was to make our way to the Crypto.com Arena for our NBA game!

We walked about 20-25mins to the Crypto.com Arena from where we parked our car. Baby had purchased the tickets online in advance. In order to enter the premises, all attendees HAD to hold a valid ticket/online printout and pass through a very strict security bag check.

This was my fourth time watching a live NBA match in United States, but I felt more excited this time round, as I was so much closer to the courts as compared to my previous games. 

It was a live match between the L.A Clippers and the Memphis Grizzlies, and we were here to see James Harden, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Russell Westbrook. They are the superstars for the LA Clippers!

Unfortunately, our team didn't win as according to Baby, the team were still trying to find chemistry as James Harden had just joined them for a few weeks only. The game was actually quite competitive and the Clippers were leading at one point, but alas it is what it is. Our night ended on a bittersweet note but I was glad that I got a good view of the court. We were 15 rows-up from the actual court. Baby wouldn't tell me the price of the tickets as these were great seats as compared to the previous 'nose-bleed' seats from previous games that I went with him. It was definitely an eye-opening and wonderful experience for me, as I felt so good to be part of the arena’s atmosphere rather than to watch it on television. Thanks Baby for bringing me there!

Each guest who came down for the game received an Ivica Zubac Wobble Head Figure as a keep-sake souvenir! OMG! We love it so much!

After the games, we had our late lunch at an eatery place called California Pizza Kitchen. 

After a decent meal, we walked back to the car-park to pick up our car. While walking, eagle-eyed baby spotted a beautiful mural honoring the late Kobe Bryant. We took some pictures against it!

We drove to Glendale Galleries to do some shopping, as they were having Pre Black Friday Sales. 

We headed straight back to our Airbnb after shopping. We spent a while packing our luggage, as we were leaving our Airbnb the very next day to head down to Las Vegas, Nevada!